The starlight Directive

Victor Hollow's breath came in shallow bursts as he crouched behind the twisted wreck of an old watchtower. The cold bite of steel pressed against his back, but he didn't dare shift. Not with that thing so close.

Below him, the Zhorul moved with unnatural grace, its elongated limbs scraping against the ground like broken scythes. Its six eyes glowed faintly in the dim twilight, scanning the ruins with mechanical precision. It sniffed the air, releasing a wet, rattling click from its throat.

Stay still. Stay quiet.

His heart pounded like thunder in his ears, and he clenched his jaw to keep his breathing steady. The Zhorul's sense of hearing was sharper than anything else in the wilds of Land 17. One wrong move, one stray breath, and it would be on him in seconds.

Victor glanced up. The veins of blue light in the sky — the same glow he'd seen before — had grown thicker. They shimmered with a slow, rhythmic pulse, like a heartbeat in the clouds. He'd seen it only once before, on the Day of Breach.

The day everything went wrong.

That day, the ground had split open in Land 9. Zhorul poured out like floodwater, an endless swarm of claws and fangs. The survivors said the Starlight Directive had failed. But that wasn't possible. The Directive never failed. It was supposed to be absolute. Indestructible. Eternal.

Victor ducked lower, muscles tense, eyes locked on the Zhorul's movements. His fingers brushed against the leather strap of his satchel. He knew what was inside — a shard of something far more dangerous than the monsters outside. A fragment of something stolen.

The weight of it tugged at him.

I shouldn't have taken it.

He bit back the thought. It was too late for that. The Directive was already aware. That glow in the sky wasn't just some trick of light. It was watching him. It always watched.

The Zhorul jerked its head up. Its eyes fixed on the tower.

It heard me.

Victor's heart froze. Slowly, its six glowing eyes narrowed, locking onto his shadow. Its body coiled, sinewy muscles tensing like steel cables. He felt the change in the air — that shift right before a predator pounces.

Run.

He bolted.

The Zhorul shrieked, a noise sharp enough to split bone. The sound ripped through the air as Victor vaulted over the edge of the crumbling stairwell. His boots hit the dirt below, knees buckling, but he kept moving. He sprinted through the wreckage, weaving past shattered stone and twisted metal. His lungs burned. His legs ached.

The scream of the Zhorul grew louder, closer.

Faster.

He reached a broken archway and ducked through it. His breath hitched as he stumbled into the open field beyond. No cover. Nothing but open dirt and cracked earth for miles. His mind screamed at him to turn back, but the clatter of claws on stone echoed behind him. No choice now.

Victor ran.

The glow in the sky pulsed faster. The blue light flickered and throbbed like a warning flare, casting his shadow long and sharp across the ground. The pulse was steady. Too steady. Like a countdown.

One… two… three…

He didn't want to know what would happen at zero.

The Zhorul was faster. It was always faster. Its shadow stretched across the ground behind him, a long, spindly nightmare.

Victor saw the broken ridge up ahead — a jagged fault in the ground splitting Land 17 into two uneven halves. His mind spun. Jump. It was the only way.

You won't make it.

He didn't listen. He poured every ounce of strength into his legs and leapt. Air rushed past him. For a moment, he felt weightless. He could hear the shriek of the Zhorul right behind him. Too close.

The ridge passed below him — sharp rocks like the jaws of some ancient beast. His fingers brushed against the other side. He grabbed for the edge — missed — and felt himself falling.

No, no, no—

His fingers snagged a root. His arm jolted in its socket, pain searing up to his shoulder. He bit back a shout, teeth grinding together as he clung to the root with everything he had. Rocks crumbled around him, tumbling into the abyss below. His legs swung wildly, feet kicking at open air.

Above, the Zhorul skidded to a halt. It crouched at the edge, its eyes fixed on him. Slowly, it tilted its head, as if calculating. Its jaw unhinged, revealing rows of needle-thin teeth. A low, guttural hum rattled from its chest.

Victor squeezed his eyes shut. His fingers slipped.

I won't fall.

With a yell, he flung his other hand upward, latching onto the edge of the cliff. His muscles burned like fire, but he pulled himself up. Every inch felt like dragging a mountain. Dirt crumbled beneath his knees as he clawed his way onto solid ground.

He lay there, gasping for breath, dirt smeared on his face. The glow in the sky pulsed again. One. Two. Three.

The Zhorul hissed from the opposite side of the ridge. It paced along the edge, its eyes never leaving him. It didn't need to. It knew what was coming.

Victor rolled onto his back, eyes fixed on the sky. The glow was brighter now, flickering in sharp, steady flashes. A siren call from the clouds. It wasn't watching him anymore. It was doing something worse.

It's calling them.

The first scream echoed from the east. Another from the west. Low, distant howls growing louder with every second. Victor sat up, his heart a deadweight in his chest. No. Not again.

He scrambled to his feet. His eyes darted to the tree line on the far side of the ridge. If he ran fast enough, maybe—

The air around him rippled.

A low hum echoed from above. The sky's glow collapsed inward, blue threads spiraling toward a single point directly overhead. Light folded in on itself like paper crumpling in reverse. His stomach churned as the ground beneath him trembled.

The air shattered.

A wave of pressure blasted across the field, hurling Victor to the ground. His ears rang as if a bell the size of a mountain had been struck. He rolled over, vision swimming, every part of his body screaming in pain.

When his vision cleared, he saw it. A rift.

A split in the air, jagged and raw, like a fresh wound cut into reality itself. It hovered a hundred feet above the ground, a hole filled with writhing shadows and shifting lights. From within, something moved. Something big.

His breath caught in his throat. No. Not here. Not now.

The first claw slipped through the rift, fingers long and sharp as daggers. Then another. A face followed — if it could be called a face — an eyeless mass of writhing tendrils and metal plates fused into something wrong.

The Zhorul across the ridge reared back, letting out a long, low moan. It knew what this was. It wasn't a predator anymore. It was prey.

The creature from the rift pulled itself halfway through. Its head twisted at an unnatural angle. No eyes, but it saw everything. Its body shifted like it was being built piece by piece, new limbs forming and folding into themselves.

Victor staggered to his feet. His legs wobbled. His mind screamed at him to run, but there was nowhere to go. Not from that.

He turned and ran anyway.

The last thing he heard before the ground exploded behind him was the voice. Not a scream. Not a roar. A voice, clear and sharp.

"Victor Hollow…" it said, words folding into his ears like silk knives.

He stopped running. Slowly, he turned his head.

The creature's head hung low, its face inches from the ground. Its tendrils writhed like snakes as it crawled forward on jagged limbs.

"I see you."

The sky above pulsed one last time.

One. Two. Three.

Zero.

The ground shattered beneath him.